After much deliberation over whether or not it was honestly worth it write 3 different articles that would all show the same disdain and angst towards what is largely the same problem, I have elected to write one article. So, you get one semi-interesting read, rather than three boring, whiny article.
Microsoft - The Propagators
I struggle even caring about their conference. It's clear that I don't fit in any of the companies demographics, but this was the most droll. Essentially, one company got up there, screaming about their motion control, while bragging about their exclusives, which are almost all shooters. I really have the least to say about the Xbox 360. Whilst I would say it's my current favorite console, I would regard "favorite" as a word that I have to use to describe what console I spend the most time with. All in all, their hand revealed they are the propagators of the industry's rut. Exclusivity, followed by DLC, followed by sequel makes for a very boring, repetitive market. If you didn't see any of those sequels coming, you are not good at anything.
Sony - The Ignorant
What was Sony trying to prove? Their glorified audio books weren't that impressive, being more for children and total gimmicks, and they also showed predictability in their lot. I'm going to throw it right up and say that I am definitely Sony biased, but I really can't see anything that came out of their conference as really exciting. Where was The Last Guardian?
Both of these companies took their show to prove they had nothing really interesting and that they have new consoles in development, which is really what they were lacking. Any sort of showstoppers. At the other end of the spectrum...
Nintedo - The Soulless
The Wii U is still coming! And it looks even worse than it did one year ago! I had a hard time keeping my mouth closed during their show. Not because of surprise or excitement, but in total disbelief people cheered at all. From Nintendo, we got the same old shit they've been slinging since the end of the Gamecube. Nothing they were producing was new or innovative or creative. 4 new Mario games, all continuing already established "spin-off" titles, with Wii Sports getting a re-release and being retitled as "Nintendoland", which is...just an awful name. Oh, but look! Nintendo is finally getting into the ONLINE scene! Just like the HD party, they show up years late and with what? An online community that functions identically to Twitter and Facebook's awful spawn? Maybe I'm being preemptive, but I just don't think it's going to pan out like they touted it. Hardly any of my real world friends play the same exact games I do, and hardly any of them give a shit enough to post tips about how to beat "a particularly difficult boss". How do I know? Because I don't give a shit to help them; I'll go immediately to GameFAQs where someone who has been writing many FAQs already has posted three different ways to beat said level, or boss, or collection fest -- after all, this is Nintendo we are talking about here!
These..."innovations" in the industry are actually, I believe, deteriorating the word "innovative". The Kinect would be awesome if it worked well at all, the Move is just too much stuff and shares all the same problems, and the Wii offered a controller that did something whenever you moved the slightest bit. Now I'll have an iPad that's white and has buttons and Nintendo's logo on it? No, I just can't believe this is at all worth getting excited about.
Maybe it's not the companies I have a problem with, but rather all you little shits you eat this shit up. There's an unpleasant expectation of the next thing to come when the current thing just came out, and it's this consistent future thinking that makes people who work on these creations feel like shit. Remember that one time you made a macaroni picture for your mother and she hung it up on the fridge just last week? What if, instead of believing it was at all anything impressive, she instead looked at it, sold it to the first bidder, and asked, "Alright, so when will the next one be done? And I think you should honestly make the graphics better this time, while also improving the gameplay. And what the fuck was up with the ending? It wasn't how I wanted it to end, so try to conform to my standards perfectly, or I'll tell all my friends you smell like shit and have no talent."
""It was tough for me to see that every time I made a new game, people automatically assumed that a sequel was coming." - Masahiro Sakurai, after his resignation from Nintendo dev HAL Laboratories as a result of the consistent sequelization.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
E3 2012 - What Happened?
Though our E3 coverage was slim to none (I don't believe many were planning on getting their news here anyway), we are planning to discuss E3 in the coming days, now that all the festivities and embarrassing moments are all over.
I think it can be agreed upon that E3 2012 was a flop. Hope in the industry was not renewed when the twenty billionth sequel was announced for all the yearly (/bi-yearly) titles. On top of that, new hardware was nowhere to be seen, with the Wii U disappointing in droves. So, as I sit back, as an adult, and wonder what happened to what used to be the most magical week of my year, I would like to begin our week-long E3 deliberations by stating what seems to be the problem with our once beloved trade show.
A Bad Economy
Suffice to say, all industries are still feeling the world-wide recession, and while some are recovering well, the games industry to feeling a bit campy. The amount of sequels and prequels alone makes one hark back to the '90s, when the movie industry began to capitalize on sequels like never before. Original thought always takes a hit when parent companies are feeling unsafe about the waters, and this E3 was a testament to that fact. Gears of War and God of War are both seeing prequel releases, and very few new IPs made appearances. So, until the industry as a whole finds its footing again (or a newer, better business model arises), you had better buckle up for a very safe ride.
No Good Models To Follow
Now that it's on the table, if I didn't know better, the games industry is following the movie industry's decades model, but at an alarmingly quick rate. Chalking the time shift up to swiftly advancing technology, we're already seeing "innovations" on tried and true ideas. Motion controls, peripherals, and touch screens, oh my! Just as 3D has attempted to innovate the film world for what amounts to more than a century, so will these things. While it is true that people will go and see a movie in 3D because it is "new" and "cool", very few people desire to see every one of their movies in 3D and I feel the same concept can be applied to video games. I can't stand the thought of owning a console where most games have some sort of motion control gimmick to them. A fad is a fad because it catches on as quickly as it dies off, and nothing could describe Nintendo's precious Wii better.
Am I saying these "innovations" need not exist? No, but I do believe developers need to see past what they are and either develop a game around them or develop a game around a traditional controller. "Innovations" added to an already finished game will feel like gimmicks when they don't actually add anything but a new way to do something in-game (here's to you, Arkham City: ARMOURED EDITION).
The E3 Audience
I remember growing up and dying to go to E3. It was just a really cool event with big surprises and a lot to see. When press conferences started airing on TV and the internet, it was even better! Shortly after, though, it seems like they stopped making the show for me.
Gone were the subtle hints, surprises and fan service, while the eras of spectacle, big budgets and bad comedy were Ushered in. No I don't want to see a concert at my E3. That is not the time, nor the place.
With what three audiences do the events strike out with?
The casual audience - the same people who like big, gaudy, over-the-top events where the actual talent being shown is sub-par. Yes, you, Usher fans. These are the people those in charge of the conferences hope to attract because they have the biggest, and stupidest, disposable income. Yet, they don't care enough because they can get the same news from E3 in their "Suggested Articles" on Yahoo! News.
The gaming press - Let us face the facts. If you want to be a "games journalist", it is usually because the actual rules of real journalism were "too hard" and "took too much out of game playing time" when you started your "Gamez Blogg" that you decided to say, "Fuck it, I'll just write about what the fuck I want. AP Style makes me want to take a poopie and I can't be bothered with re-reading my articles for typos." I have respect for only a few "games journalists" and most of what I can't stand can be found on Kotaku. While I could berate these people for days, I just want to narrow in on one point; this particular audience now makes up a large part of who attend E3. So, a bunch of people who love playing their favorite games are handed a pass which makes them feel entitled to play the "my opinion matters" card and thereby pass judgement upon all seen at E3, with all their massive biases intact. Kotaku is a good place to find bias and opinion in a topic that deserves tact and fact.
Finally...the shareholders - the silent audience. The ones that are not watching because they care or because they plan on playing anything fun ever. I don't believe they even watch. What they will watch, however, is the public's interest, thus resulting in an investment into stock, or, even worse, selling of stock. In an ideal world, the stock market is meant to be a good way for new companies to bring in investors and old companies to offer something to employees. However, what we experience today is a far more twisted system. Another reason sequels were the free flavor for this year's E3 was because sequels perform well. And when a company performs well, their stocks perform well. It does not bode well when it is clear that very few companies are willing to take risks with new IPs because they might fail and lose investors. I know that I am most likely over-playing this fact, but it's something no one really talks about.
All in all, this E3 wasn't bad as much as it was boring. But it's hard to spend a lot of money on a glorified press release and subsequently make it entertaining and fun and surprising. It's just a shame that this difficulty also results in fear over what to release.
Stay tuned this week for our review of each of the big E3 players' conferences (...and Ubisoft's)!
I think it can be agreed upon that E3 2012 was a flop. Hope in the industry was not renewed when the twenty billionth sequel was announced for all the yearly (/bi-yearly) titles. On top of that, new hardware was nowhere to be seen, with the Wii U disappointing in droves. So, as I sit back, as an adult, and wonder what happened to what used to be the most magical week of my year, I would like to begin our week-long E3 deliberations by stating what seems to be the problem with our once beloved trade show.
A Bad Economy
Suffice to say, all industries are still feeling the world-wide recession, and while some are recovering well, the games industry to feeling a bit campy. The amount of sequels and prequels alone makes one hark back to the '90s, when the movie industry began to capitalize on sequels like never before. Original thought always takes a hit when parent companies are feeling unsafe about the waters, and this E3 was a testament to that fact. Gears of War and God of War are both seeing prequel releases, and very few new IPs made appearances. So, until the industry as a whole finds its footing again (or a newer, better business model arises), you had better buckle up for a very safe ride.
No Good Models To Follow
Now that it's on the table, if I didn't know better, the games industry is following the movie industry's decades model, but at an alarmingly quick rate. Chalking the time shift up to swiftly advancing technology, we're already seeing "innovations" on tried and true ideas. Motion controls, peripherals, and touch screens, oh my! Just as 3D has attempted to innovate the film world for what amounts to more than a century, so will these things. While it is true that people will go and see a movie in 3D because it is "new" and "cool", very few people desire to see every one of their movies in 3D and I feel the same concept can be applied to video games. I can't stand the thought of owning a console where most games have some sort of motion control gimmick to them. A fad is a fad because it catches on as quickly as it dies off, and nothing could describe Nintendo's precious Wii better.
Am I saying these "innovations" need not exist? No, but I do believe developers need to see past what they are and either develop a game around them or develop a game around a traditional controller. "Innovations" added to an already finished game will feel like gimmicks when they don't actually add anything but a new way to do something in-game (here's to you, Arkham City: ARMOURED EDITION).
The E3 Audience
I remember growing up and dying to go to E3. It was just a really cool event with big surprises and a lot to see. When press conferences started airing on TV and the internet, it was even better! Shortly after, though, it seems like they stopped making the show for me.
Gone were the subtle hints, surprises and fan service, while the eras of spectacle, big budgets and bad comedy were Ushered in. No I don't want to see a concert at my E3. That is not the time, nor the place.
With what three audiences do the events strike out with?
The casual audience - the same people who like big, gaudy, over-the-top events where the actual talent being shown is sub-par. Yes, you, Usher fans. These are the people those in charge of the conferences hope to attract because they have the biggest, and stupidest, disposable income. Yet, they don't care enough because they can get the same news from E3 in their "Suggested Articles" on Yahoo! News.
The gaming press - Let us face the facts. If you want to be a "games journalist", it is usually because the actual rules of real journalism were "too hard" and "took too much out of game playing time" when you started your "Gamez Blogg" that you decided to say, "Fuck it, I'll just write about what the fuck I want. AP Style makes me want to take a poopie and I can't be bothered with re-reading my articles for typos." I have respect for only a few "games journalists" and most of what I can't stand can be found on Kotaku. While I could berate these people for days, I just want to narrow in on one point; this particular audience now makes up a large part of who attend E3. So, a bunch of people who love playing their favorite games are handed a pass which makes them feel entitled to play the "my opinion matters" card and thereby pass judgement upon all seen at E3, with all their massive biases intact. Kotaku is a good place to find bias and opinion in a topic that deserves tact and fact.
Finally...the shareholders - the silent audience. The ones that are not watching because they care or because they plan on playing anything fun ever. I don't believe they even watch. What they will watch, however, is the public's interest, thus resulting in an investment into stock, or, even worse, selling of stock. In an ideal world, the stock market is meant to be a good way for new companies to bring in investors and old companies to offer something to employees. However, what we experience today is a far more twisted system. Another reason sequels were the free flavor for this year's E3 was because sequels perform well. And when a company performs well, their stocks perform well. It does not bode well when it is clear that very few companies are willing to take risks with new IPs because they might fail and lose investors. I know that I am most likely over-playing this fact, but it's something no one really talks about.
All in all, this E3 wasn't bad as much as it was boring. But it's hard to spend a lot of money on a glorified press release and subsequently make it entertaining and fun and surprising. It's just a shame that this difficulty also results in fear over what to release.
Stay tuned this week for our review of each of the big E3 players' conferences (...and Ubisoft's)!
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